Recently, the Chinese Communist Party announced the cessation of its international adoption policy, stating that foreign individuals will no longer be allowed to adopt Chinese children. Over the past 30 years, China has become one of the largest countries for international adoption, with over 160,000 Chinese children being adopted by families around the world. International adoption has also become a means of generating revenue for Chinese welfare institutions. Political analysts believe that there must be undisclosed reasons behind the CCP’s decision to halt international adoptions.
On September 5th, Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesperson Mao Ning confirmed that the Chinese government had adjusted its policies on international adoption. She stated that in the future, China will no longer allow children to be adopted by foreign individuals unless they are within the “third generation of collateral consanguinity or siblings of the same generation.” Mao Ning did not provide specific reasons for the policy adjustment, only claiming that it was in line with the spirit of relevant international conventions.
According to the regulations of the Chinese Ministry of Civil Affairs, “third generation of collateral consanguinity or siblings of the same generation” refers to siblings and third-generation cousins from the paternal or maternal grandparents. This means that unless there is a blood relation with the adopted child, foreign individuals will no longer have the opportunity to adopt children from China.
Since 1979, the Chinese Communist Party has implemented strict “family planning” policies nationwide to control population growth. Each family was limited to having only one child, leading many families to prefer having boys and resulting in the abandonment of numerous female and disabled children. Consequently, the CCP began allowing foreign adoptions.
In 1992, the CCP implemented the Adoption Law, allowing foreign families to adopt orphans in China. Shortly after, China quickly became a major source of adopted children for citizens of countries such as the United States, Sweden, Spain, and Germany.
Among foreign adopters, over 80% are Americans. Since 2000, China has been the largest source of adopted children for Americans. Data shows that from 1999 to 2022, American families adopted a total of 282,921 foreign-born children, with 82,658 of them coming from China, accounting for 29.2%. This number surpasses the combined total of adoptions from Russia (46,113) and Guatemala (29,807) that followed. The peak year for Americans adopting Chinese children was 2005 when over 7,900 Chinese children were adopted by American families, with one out of every three orphans being from China.
In 2007, the CCP tightened regulations on international adoptions. By 2020, the number of Chinese children adopted by Americans had decreased to 202. During the COVID-19 pandemic in 2021 and 2022, the number of children adopted from China by the United States dropped to zero, as the CCP government had suspended international adoptions since the early stages of the epidemic. By 2023, only 16 Chinese children had been adopted by American families.
Chinese-Canadian author Sheng Xue, residing in Canada, expressed in an interview with Epoch Times reporters on September 8th that the CCP has always disregarded international conventions, cared little for policy regulations, and showed no concern for the lives of Chinese people, whether the elderly or children. She believes that there must be undisclosed reasons behind the CCP’s decision to cease international adoptions.
Sheng Xue mentioned that in the past, when implementing the “family planning” policy, these abandoned children were viewed as profit tools because the adoption process was cumbersome, and foreigners had to pay significant fees to adopt them. She believes that the CCP’s policy change is closely associated with the overall difficulties it faces.
She further analyzed that firstly, China’s birth rate has significantly declined, impacting the CCP’s long-term strategic planning. By stopping international adoptions for foreign children to remain in China, these children are kept within the country to serve as the system’s “crops.” Secondly, Chinese adoptees by Western countries have excelled in sports, arts, academics, and other fields, while domestic children face challenges in survival due to a lack of educational resources and concerning living standards. “This contrast undoubtedly embarrasses the CCP.”
She went on to say, thirdly, Chinese leaders have harbored ambitions to forcefully annex Taiwan, but in reality, they face a severe shortage of troops. The CCP may keep these children in the country to be used as cannon fodder in future wars. Additionally, there is a possibility that China’s organ transplant industry is widespread, and these children may become organ donors, falling victim to forced organ harvesting and illegal organ transplants.
“In conclusion, there must be undisclosed reasons behind the CCP’s decision to halt international adoptions,” Sheng Xue remarked.
In 1990, after ten years of implementing the “family planning” policy, the CCP ceased the practice of placing excess births in relative or other households, leading to a large influx of children into welfare institutions. International adoptions also became a revenue-generating means for welfare institutions.
According to a report by CCTV in 2011, the cost for a foreign individual to adopt a child in China was approximately $5,000. This included around $3,000 as a direct donation to the welfare institution, as well as $365 for review fees, $200 for translation fees charged by the CCP adoption center, and additional processing fees of about $800. Calculated from the 4,459 foreign adoptions registered in 2009, this brought approximately $22.295 million in revenue to welfare institutions and the CCP adoption center.
Established in 1996, the CCP adoption center is dedicated to providing services for international adoptions, including reviewing foreign adoption applications and related documentation, as well as handling external communication and coordination for international adoptions.
The report noted that foreign adopters in China usually stayed for three to ten days, mostly processing adoption formalities in provincial capital cities, such as registration, judicial notarization, and obtaining necessary documents like the child’s passport. During this process, foreign adopters typically received hotel accommodations, transportation, translation services through various agencies, and even enjoyed sightseeing arrangements. However, for domestic adopters in China, the adoption process was much more challenging without agencies to assist them.
The report also stated that due to most profits from international adoptions flowing to welfare institutions, the temptation of economic benefits gave rise to baby-selling incidents. In November 2005, a local media outlet in Hunan Province exposed a baby-trafficking ring in Qidong County of Hengyang, discovering multiple welfare institutions involved in the scheme. These institutions colluded with traffickers to purchase infants and falsely portrayed them as “abandoned babies” sent for international adoption, profiting from the transactions. The welfare institutions paid up to 2,000-3,000 RMB (approximately $300-400) to “purchase” infants and earned $5,000 for each child sent abroad for adoption.
In 2017, an article by the official CCP media outlet Beijing Youth Daily reported that in 2014, the adoption organization “Lifeline” in Alabama, USA, listed a schedule of expenses for American parents adopting a child in China, with adoption costs totaling $18,930. Including intermediary fees, home visits, passport costs, the total expenditure reached $21,550.5. There were also claims that foreign couples had paid up to $30-40,000 for adopting Chinese orphans.
Data shows that China’s birth rate sharply declined from 2.3 children per woman in 1990 to 1.22 in 2000 and 1.18 in 2010, leading to a rapid decrease in the number of children available for adoption.
Additionally, data indicates that the infertility rate among the Chinese population of childbearing age increased from 11.9% in 2007 to 17.6% in 2020, with approximately 33 million couples facing infertility issues by 2022.
Despite the CCP’s implementation of comprehensive two-child and three-child policies in 2016 and 2021, as well as a series of measures to encourage childbirth, data released by the Shanghai Health Commission on May 20, 2024, revealed that Shanghai’s total fertility rate for 2023 was 0.6, ranking among the lowest in the world.
When looking at a longer timeline, this declining trend becomes even more apparent – within just 7 years, China’s annual birth rate decreased by over half – from 18.83 million births in 2016 to only 9.02 million in 2023.
Former Beijing lawyer and Chairman of the Overseas Chinese Democracy Movement in Canada, Lai Jianping, told Epoch Times reporters on September 8th that the declining Chinese population has posed a threat to the stability of the CCP regime. In the past, the demographic dividend has been the foundation of China’s economic development and a key element in sustaining the CCP’s rule. However, with the continuous population decrease and loss of demographic dividends leading to economic decline, these factors have begun to undermine the foundation of the CCP’s governance, causing anxiety within the party. He stated that as the birth rate declines and the number of children available for adoption decreases, the CCP’s main motive for ceasing international adoptions is to stem the further reduction of the population.